Real Men don't go around. Garuda 737 crash March 2007
 

The Melbourne Age newspaper (17 March 2018) supplement "Good Weekend" published the story of Cynthia Banham who survived the 2007 Yogyakarta Garuda Boeing 737 crash that killed 21 others but lost her marathon-running legs in the process. At the time of the accident, she was a respected journalist; the foreign affairs and defence correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald.

In the article she described how she and other passengers noticed something was wrong; the plane was approaching the runway too fast. People started shouting and Banham grabbed her arm-rests. "screams were rising in my throat." she writes, "but I was so panicked-also so unbelieving-the full sound would not come out.

The airliner bounced twice, overran the runway, crossed a road and hit an embankment, finally coming to rest in a paddy field. The cockpit was folded back on top of the forward passenger cabin, where Banham was sitting. She thinks she briefly passed out. When she regained consciousness, she became aware that the seat in front of her had collapsed onto her, and the cabin was alight. She couldn't see the fire but she heard it crackling. Then she realised her left leg was burning. Of the 140 people on the plane, 21 were killed.

That was just eleven years ago this March. One wonders how many current Pprune readers would have read about that accident and learned the important lesson from it that pressing on with an unstable approach instead of going around again, can lead to disaster. It also reveals the danger on the flight deck of a `Real men don't go around` ethnic culture that pervades in some aviation societies.

Read the report:

https://aviation-safety.net/database...?id=20070307-0

Full Report: http://knkt.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_a...%20Release.pdf

And the woman sitting next to Banham tragically lost her life. It touched down at 221 knots, just unbelievable. It's hard to see how an experienced pilot can make such an error.

It wasn't an error. The captain was well aware the speed was way above the desired landing speed.

This "`Real men don't go around` ethnic culture" is one of the reasons I just won't travel on many airlines based in some countries where high levels of male bravado and belief in testosterone-based "manliness" exist. As we've all seen, that type of attitude and modus operandi is a major cause of accidents and, although many of the carriers from places where these attitudes are endemic have done a lot of work on improving their safety, where there's very high level of "don't speak up because you don't want to cause your superior to lose face" culture in the society in general, the accidents will keep on happening. This one was an appalling example. You'd have to kidnap me at gunpoint to see me travelling on an airline like Garuda.

Well that counts out air travel in a very large slice of the world.
It also excludes air travel on a few "western" airlines.

Yup. The world's full of bully-boy "my way or the highway" can't-be-tolds. When they're in airlines they're part of the swiss cheese manufacturing process and the ones that occupy the left-hand seat are generally "Director of Crash Ops" awaiting to fulfill their destiny. There are many cultures that aren't even aware they're not even aware of this stuff (substantial portions of the developing world and yes it's present in some "western" carriers too). I'm risk-managing to minimise being an extra on one of those TV air-crash investigation programs. :)

Since 2007 Garuda have recorded 3 incidents, all 737's.

One was a broken MG axle due to corrosion and the other 2 were written off when ground equipment impacted aircraft at the gate. (Source: Aviation Safety Network)

Looks like they have lifted their game.

And it looks like they've kept the "Director(s) of Crash Ops" out of the cockpits and restricted them to ground handling duties, ha!

They certainly did under previous CEO and a great deal of help from their primary fleet supplier.
Hope that current CEO can maintain those "CIP" initiatives.

I don't have any great concern about traveling with Garuda.
But then, if you do travel around a bit then you also have to make some uncomfortable decisions from time to time.
It's always up to you.

But, in fairness, you should also apply the same standards to the alternatives.
Trains, buses, boats or even walking, etc are not necessarily safer.

Some of their -800's are getting to be pretty long in the tooth.
It wouldn't take much damage (at the gate) to tip the scale in favour of replacement.

Or 'reformed' their reporting culture

One thing about Indonesia, it's almost impossible to conceal anything at all.
Way too many eyes looking on, no matter where you are or what you're doing.

Easier to sit on the facts in the west than in S-E Asia.

Refer Skippers thread for instance.

Ah Centaurus, if only the FO had read your "Axe Man of Apia" story and been a bit more assertive then the crash may never have happened.

So that just leaves Northern Europe, North America and New Zealand then?

North America?!?

The truly disturbing aspect of this incident is not that the original charge of manslaughter was downgraded to negligence.
No; the truly disturbing aspect is that the later conviction for negligence was overturned in 2009 and all charges were dropped.

If you really want something to be afraid of in Indonesia, be very afraid of their judicial system.

About a year ago I had a client from a resource company call me to say that a 737 had done a go around at their airport and those observing on the ground were concerned about the safety of the operation. :ugh::ugh:

After I managed to contain my hysterical laughter I referred said client to the link on this report. He never called again.

Many years ago when we were part of a team training Air Asia cadet pilots in the Air New Zealand B737 simulator, I told the cadets that their society placed culture above everything, but they should never permit culture to over-rule flight safety in the cockpit.

One of them asked what he should do if the captain was clearly intent on pressing on regardless with an obviously unstable approach which looked like ending in disaster and had ignored the co-pilot's warning calls. The only thing I could think of was the F/O as a last resort should call out loudly "Go Around - Landing gear is UP" and then immediately retract the landing gear.

No crazy culture-ridden captain will deliberately land wheels up just to make a point and hopefully he will go-around. Later he will blame you for the GA and doubtless you will be sacked in that society; but you may have saved a hundred lives including your own. Some may argue that is dangerous advice and the captain might land wheels up. My thoughts were that you were going to crash anyway so you may as well force a GA and hope for the best. :ok:

I realize the captain was aware his speed was too high. What I struggle with is how on earth he thought this was OK.

And he pops up every couple of years in the Jakarta Post, still protesting that he did nothing wrong.